Material: Resin, Height: 9 cm
EARS WITH KNIFE
In larger version with more details!
From the Tryptichon "The Garden of Earthly Delights", Prado, Madrid.
Two enormous ears, held together by an arrow and a knife jammed in between. Is there an allegorical mediaeval symbolism behind this, or are the horrible tortures one might expect in hell pictured here once more? Is the monogram on the knife an M of the B of Bosch? Maybe we will never know what Bosch ‘had between his ears’ when he was painting this picture.
HIERONYMUS BOSCH (1450 -1516)
THE GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS Hiëronymus Bosch shows us how we mortal souls, arisen from earthly paradise, are on our way to the atrocious ordeals of hell via our unchaste lives on earth. The dark painting on the closed panels shows the Creation, surrounded by water, in accordance with mediaeval traditions.
